Update

Another year has flown by. I was amazed at the date of the last post coming across it tonight. It feels like I was just writing that not too long ago. So much has happened since then. A year at art school has made me a stronger artist and graphic designer. Even so, stop motion animation and animation in general are on the back burner right now. It's one of the tough things about being interested in so many different mediums. As I learn one better, another (like photography at the moment) sacrifices.

So what's up with this educational film website that I've been hinting at for the last couple years? Well, it hasn't gone much of anywhere, and I'll be honest with you in saying that it won't go much of anywhere any time soon. At this point, the only way that it will become a reality is if it can be a self sustaining and growing business. Right now, I have branding ideas that I think will make it succeed and stand out in the crowd, but I don't have the time to run it. What I would like to do is give birth to the idea and either hire individuals to write for me or sell it to somebody who has the time, dedication, and knowledge to build it into a successful website.

I'd write more about the specifics I've learned over this past year in art school, but that'll have to wait for another time.

It's Been...Longer than Forever?

Wow...

It's been almost a year since my last blog post. I just decided to check out my blog and website out of the blue today and it was kind of fun. It has been so long since I've been deeply involved in clay animation and posted anything to these sites that I was actually relearning some stuff from my own posts. Re-reading things has also really shown me how much things have changed over the past couple years. Anyways, I thought that I'd continue the "It's been" series and write up another post to share some of those things that have happened this year.

One of the more recent occurrences in my life is that I graduated from high school. During my senior year, I spent a lot of time applying to various colleges attend. In the end, I chose to go the the only art school I applied to and plan to start studying there this next fall, aiming for a degree in Graphic Design. The first year will be a foundation year where I'll focus a lot in the more traditional art forms like paining and drawing. I'll also get a good dosage of art history. It will probably be a lot of work, but I should learn a lot. Hopefully I wont get sick of art. Why graphic design? It's something I can see myself doing for a living and that I'm good at. I have an interest in film and a passion for photography, but I can't see myself having either of those as a full time occupation.

Speaking of photography, let's get into some of the things that I've learned this past school year. Let's start off with photography. It's probably the hobby that I've had the longest and have invested the most time and money into, but it's been fun. This past year, I've taken hundreds of photos and explored different subjects and techniques. I also purchased a new lens, one that has a 200mm zoom, so that's been nice. If you want to see my photography, check out the link below.

My Photography on Flickr

I also got a lot of experience in ceramics and pottery and using the wheel this year. I learned a lot just through practice and from seeing how things work over time. It really shows you that if you keep commited to something, you will improve and learn, it just takes time.

Another area that I improved in was in terms of layout design. I was part of my school's yearbook team so it forced me to study magazines and techniques used in layout design. It was a very good learning expereince and I'm glad I had it, even thought it did take a lot of work and effort. I also got a lot of practice photographing sports for the book.

So why am I mentioning all this art realated stuff? Well, this is an art related blog and I believe that all things art related and more help contribute to one's effort in creating a short film or stop motion animation. Even though I haven't updated this blog or really practiced the art, stop motion isn't something that I've stopped thinking about. In the last year, I've continued to develop a website dedicated to teaching film. Even though I've only worked on it in short spurts, I've made a good deal of progress organizing and collecting ideas as well as developing a business plan and brand. One of the cool things about letting a project like this develop over such a long time, is that it grows as you grow. Everything I learn in the daily walk of life can be contributed to the project and help it become something I couldn't have imagined a few years ago.

The project still has a lot of work that needs to go into it. Everything needs to be designed as well as coded(my biggest challenge). I also have to flesh out a lot of the tutorial ideas I have into articles which will take a lot of time and research, something that I won't have a lot of time to do in college. The cool thing is that even though this project might take a while to get off its feet, it'll continue to grow slowly into something bigger and better. Some things just take time and experience to get better....just like my experience with pottery. We'll see what happens.

I can't promise anything, but hopefully, there'll be another post like this in another year or two. Maybe one will come even sooner...

It's Been Forever

Wow. It's been over three months since I've more regularly posted on this blog and two since my last post. School is now out and I have the ability to put my focuses in other areas. Sadly, however, this isn't a post to say that I'm going to be coming back to pots more often. This blog will probably stay dead for quite a while now and I have no intentions of posting much on it any time in the near future. All is not bad news though, but before the good news I'll give you a quick rundown of what has been going on in my life.

The thing that has pretty much been keeping me from anything clay animation related is school, friends, and other interests. Like I had said in previous posts on this blog, my living situation, and essentially, my life-style, so that I could no longer research and update the blog as regularly as I once had. The last months of school were pretty busy for me. I had a number of classes where I had to put more focus into and other side projects that ate up my time. My planning for the new stop motion site I'm developing was even stopped because it was too hard for me to focus on and think about.

So now that school is over for a summer, what I'm a going to do? Well, I've decided to put a lot of my focus for the summer into art related projects and towards building a portfolio for the college application process. I've learned a lot in the past year or two about different mediums, styles, and artistic techniques, but I have not yet applied many of them to my own pieces. This summer I hope to do that. This is where the good news comes in (pertaining to this blog). Among my various projects that I have somewhat planned, I've included the stop motion website along with a possible number of animations advertising the site. As for The Hole, I'm thinking about ditching it. It's just something that would take too much work for me to do and would take time away from other projects. I also pretty much decided this past year that animation probably is not the route that I will be taking in college even though I am willing to be exposed to it. We'll see if I change my mind in the future.

For any readers that I still have out there that would be interested, I'm probably going to be starting a blog or just a twitter account in which I can post some of the things and ideas that I'm working on this summer. That will come a little later though, when I can set everything up. As for what will be posted on it, I'll give you a quick run down of some of the other ideas that I have.

Sculpture - A bust and I'm open to more ideas
Photography - Stock and fine art photos
Graphic Design - Logos, Website Design, Branding, Illustration, Photo Manipulation
CG - Not sure yet, something that shows my skill and knowledge
Video - Film(of the photography sort), Motion Graphics, Stop Motion Animation, Time Lapses, Possibly Special Effects and Compositing Work
Fine Arts - Drawing, Painting, Digital Painting
Web - Portfolio Site, Stop Motion Site, Maybe try coding Kramer Klaymation

As always, these things are subject to change and there's always the chance that something will mess up my plans for the summer completely.

That's all I have for you for now. Hopefully I'll be able to pump out some sweet stuff and have a site up sometime to teach and share a little about the world of stop motion(it'll be 10 times better than this blog ever was).

It's Been a While

The other day, I realized that it's been over a month since I've posted on the blog. As with previous posts, I'm still busy with life and school. Don't worry though, I still get the chance to work on the new site every once in a while. I'm still working on coming up with the perfect name. Until my next post, which may take even longer to come, just assume that things are busy with me and that I work on things every once in a while.

Here's the Animation

Well, it took me a little longer to get the animation up than I expected. I ran into some upload problems and wasn't able to get to reuploading it until now. Here it is though. In the second "scene", the blob is supposed to be sleeping when it bobs its head up and down. It might be hard to tell since there aren't any sound effects.



Also, for the site, I'm still trying to come up with a name. I think I'm probably trying too hard in some ways, but I decided to do some research to try to help come up some ideas. Hopefully I'll find something good sometime so that I can actually start getting some work done.

Another Animation and Ideas

Well, I decided to try out another animation in my dorm room the other day, and it was somewhat successful. Since my last one, I've gotten a lamp to use for lighting which is better because it lights from the side rather than from the front like the ceiling light was doing. If you don't remember my last one, the ceiling light was causing my shadow to be cast onto the stage, causing flickering in the animation. The animation still isn't perfect. There's still some camera shake and the flicker is still there. I'm not quite sure why there is flickr, it may have something to do with the white balance or just something else. I'll have to look into it a little more. I'll post the animation later, I have to get a codec installed on the computer to compress it.

Something else that I also did today was come up with some ideas about creating motion design things by using stopmotion and hand drawn animation. I realized half way into doing it that I was probably making it a little more difficult than it would be if I just did it straight on the computer using various free programs, but there still may be some benefits to this method that I have yet to find. Basically I did some simple drawn animations and then keyed them on the computer and imported them into blender to use for various projects. This one was pretty rough because it was just a test, but since it works, I can try more later.

That's all for now, got to go.

Busy & Uninspired

Well, break is over, and school has started up again. So far, I’ve been really busy with various activities and schoolwork. I also haven’t been feeling the most inspired for any of the projects that I’ve created for myself so I haven’t done anything new since my last post. Hopefully I’ll be able to get into things again sometime. I’ve hit a stand still for my Kramer Klaymation design because I can’t code it, and I don’t want to spend the time learning how to code it right now.

To get things moving again for the stop motion site, which I would like to do soon, I probably should start brainstorming again for the site name. Nothing that I previously came up with met my standards so I’ll have to start all over again. One that is decided, it would give me the ability to start thinking about the logo design and branding. I’d really like to create some cool stop motion videos advertising the site, but before I can plan things too much, I need to know the name. One that is done comes the grueling task of more planning, designing the site, getting content, coding, and more. Fun stuff, but time absorbing and thought-provoking. There are also plenty of barriers that I have to figure out how to jump over. Maybe I’ll have to walk around a couple.

If anyone wonders why I post these posts about not getting work done, it’s because talking about it gets my mind thinking again and will possibly trigger some inspiration. Thanks for reading.